DAVID LINDSAY'S A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS ALLEGORICAL DREAM FANTASY AS A LITERARY MODE by JACK S CHOFIELD B.A., University of Birmingham, 1969 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA September, 19 72 tn presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the Head of my Department or by his representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of The University of British Columbia Vancouver 8, Canada Date Abstract David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus must be read as an allegorical dream fantasy for its merit to be correctly discerned. Lindsay's central themes are introduced in a study of the man and his work. (Ch. 1). These themes are found to be common in allegorical dream fantasy, the phenomen- ological background of which is established (Ch. 2). A distinction can then be drawn between fantasy and romance, so as to define allegorical dream fantasy as a literary mode (Ch. 3). After the biographical, theoretical and literary backgrounds of A Voyage have been established in the first three chapters, the second three chapters explicate the structure of the book as an allegorical dream fantasy. Finally, the dichotomies which have been found in Lindsay (between Lloyd's underwriter and visionary dreamer), between the dream and the real world, between fantasy and romance, are found to be unified by Norman N. Holland's theory of literature as transformation. CONTENTS Preface Chapter 1. David Lindsay: The Man and His Work Chapter 2. Dream and Allegory: The Phenomenological Background of a Literary Mode 30 Chapter 3. Fantasy and Romance: The Literary Background of A Voyage to Arcturus 62 Chapter 4. The Unholy War: A Voyage to Arcturus as Battle 97 Chapter 5. The Straight Way: A Voyage to Arcturus as Progress 12 7 Chapter 6. The Winding Way: Maskull's Spiral Inwards 160 Chapter 7. Allegorical Dream Fantasy: The Problem of Style 192 Appendix Bibliography Preface This thesis is a study of a book—A Voyage to Arcturus—which has, until recently, been neglected, and which is now, I would argue, misread. It is misread mainly because the genre to which it belongs— allegorical dream fantasy—has not been precisely defined. My aim is to explicate the book by setting it in its true context. David Lindsay (1878-1945) is a difficult man to assess, partly because he was 'out of key with his time.' 1920, just after World War was the wrong year to publish A Voyage to Arcturus. Moral earnestness of Lindsay's essentially Victorian sort did not have the sympathy of the public, and it must not surprise us that the book fell 'still-born from the press.' Had the book come out in 1895, shortly after She and in the same year as Wells's The Time Machine, MacDonald's Lilith and Morris's The Wood Beyond the World, it might have been received more sympathetically. But in 1895, Lindsay was only seventeen. It should have been easy to see, in 1920, that A Voyage was 25 years behind the times. It would have been difficult to guess that it was also 50 years ahead of them. Nonetheless, when A Voyage was finally published in paperback, 23 years after Lindsay's death, it came to enjoy 'a vogue.' This vogue is, however, less a result of the book's peculiar qualities than its superficial resemblance to the work of enormously popular writers, 'cult' figures, like J. R. R. Tolkien and Herman Hesse. vi Contemporary readings of the book, in one way or another, wrench A Voyage from its true context, and misread its genre. However, A Voyage is neither sui generis nor outlandishly idiosyncratic, but occupies a precisely definable place in the literary tradition of allegorical dream fantasy. Seen thus it is a well-designed, coherent and articulate work. Though A Voyage is not obviously a well constructed book, and obviously not a well written one in the accepted literary sense (nor, for that matter, are most Gothic Novels), once its structure and motif s have been uncovered, it will be found that A Voyage has many aspects that make it worthy of study. I begin with a brief account of Lindsay's life and works, partly to dispel the 'mythology' which, in the absense of facts and with mis• leading help, has grown up around Lindsay, and partly to introduce some of his themes. Lindsay's central theme is the opposition between the real and dream worlds which, while it is the basis of A Voyage to Arcturus, is more obviously discernible in 'this worldly' novels such as The Haunted Woman and, particularly, Sphinx. In Chapter Two I examine the phenomenol- ogical basis (phenomenology is the psychological philosophy of systematized delusion) of Lindsay's dualisms. I.e., I show why the psychic facts of sleep and dreams lead to a dichotomous world-view,and how allegorical dream fantasy is an appropriate literary expression of this view. In my third chapter I draw a distinction between fantasy and romance so as to define allegorical dream fantasy precisely as a literary mode, and to set A Voyage in its appropriate literary context. I show how vii Lindsay found his immediate inspiration in George MacDonald, Novalis, and Icelandic literature. Having established the biographical, the theoretical, and the literary backgrounds, I move in Chapters Four and Five to an examination of the two dimensions of the allegory. First, I explicate A Voyage as an allegorical battle between powers of light and darkness, matter and spirit, reality and dream, and so on. (This can be thought of as a vertical axis.) Second, I explicate A Voyage as a linear, allegorical progress, organised around thematic images which are established in the opening section of the book (on earth) and reccurrin the trip across Tormance. (The horizontal axis.) The first five chapters take us progressively closer to the text. In Chapter Six I trace the outline of Maskull's actual progress across Tormance, which is found to be a spiral inwards, through the body of Crystalman into the inner world of the spirit, Muspel. In the concluding chapter I tackle the problem of style: why allegorical dream fantasies, A Voyage to Arcturus in particular, succeed in gripping the reader in spite of being apparently badly written. In this chapter, the split in Lindsay (ex-Lloyd's underwriter and visionary), in the Manichaean philosophy (real world and dream world), in allegorical dream fantasy itself (between cerebral allegory and subconscious fantasy) and the message of allegorical dream fantasies (the search for 'inner light'), are found to be unified in psychological terms by Norman N. Holland's view of literature as transformation. viii A great many people have helped with this thesis, though I can mention only a few. It would not have been possible at all without the extensive services of Mr. Nick Omelusik, of Acquisitions, and Ms. Margaret Friesen, of Inter-Library Loan, and their staffs at the University of British Columbia Library. I thank them, and I thank my typists, Mrs. Susan Wells and Miss Jeanne Currie. Lastly, I have been privileged to work closely with my thesis committee of Professors Ira Nadel, Elliott B. Gose and Patricia Merivale. As a critic and a man, Elliott Gose has profoundly influenced my own attitude to literature far more than my incidental footnotes to him indicate. But my main debt is to my supervisor, Pat Merivale, without whose incisive (and witty'.) comments and always generous chiding this thesis would have been much easier to write, and a great deal less worth while. University of British Columbia Jack Schofield September, 1972 ix Abbreviations and Editions Used Page references to all of Lindsay's works and to the one book-length critical study of Lindsay are given in the text after the appropriate abbreviation, as listed: VA : A Voyage to Arcturus (New York: Ballantine Books, 1968) THW : The Haunted Woman (London: Victor Gollancz, 1968) Sph : Sphinx (London: John Long, 1923) AMM : Adventures of Monsieur de Mailly (London: Andrew Melrose, 1926) DT r : Devil's Tor (London: Putnam's, 1932) L : 'Letters to E. H. Visiak,' Adam International Review, ~ No. 346-348 (1971), pp. 39-67. TSG : The Strange Genius of David Lindsay by Colin Wilson, J. B. Pick & E. H. Visiak (London: John Baker, 1970). Any quotations from Lindsay's unpublished TSS 'The Violet Apple,' 'Witch' and 'Sketch Notes towards a New System of Philosophy' have, unless other• wise stated, been taken from The Strange Genius. Page references cited are therefore to that book and not to the works themselves. Note: spaced ellipses are mine, unspaced ellipses are the authors'. X The day-self is poltroon or hero: The night-self is picaro, pierrot. The day-self can choose to tell lies. The night-self speaks truth, or he dies. The voice comes out of an emptiness. Night-self and day-self find here no habitable planet. John Wain, Wildtrack What is divine in man is elusive and impalpable, and he is easily tempted to embody it in a collective form—a church, a country, a social system, a leader —so that he may realise it with less effort and serve it with more profit.